#63. Vic Explains 'Mulholland Dr'
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This bonus episode is built around Vic attempting to explain the plot of David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, timed to a new Criterion 4K release. Vic's Quadrant scores tell the story of his ordeal: plot an F-minus, duration an F, action/violence a B, and sex/nudity a maxed-out A+++, and he openly admits he found the film confusing and boring even as he stumbles through the Betty/Rita/Naomi Watts identity-doubling plot, the pressured young director, the mysterious backers, the cowboy, and the blue box. JVL, watching for a third time, mounts a full-throated defense of it as pure auteur-driven art cinema, arguing that a movie can work even if you only grasp half of it so long as the artist himself is fully in command, and he singles out the Club Silencio sequence as genuinely moving; Sonny, who dislikes David Lynch's filmography generally, calls the movie "compellingly hypnotic" without ever quite loving it, comparing its confident weirdness to Christopher Nolan's Tenet. As a short bonus episode there's no extended opening banter — the trio dives straight into the movie — though there's a good tangent when JVL reveals a photo of a stranger, Bishop Stephen Lopez, who looks eerily like him, which the group riffs on as a real-life echo of the film's doppelganger theme, plus a comic table-read of a colleague's cheesy 2001 TV-news review of the film ("Mulholland Drive starts with one star but finishes with an explosive four").
From the show notes
You know who ELSE saw this (in 2001)?
Full transcript
Vic00:00:00Hello and welcome to a special bonus episode of The Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Just a reminder, The Sub-Beacon is now available through Patreon. Go to subbeacon.com. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe. Tell your friends. Today, we are talking about Mulholland Drive. Not to be mistaken with Mulholland Falls, which I actually saw in a theater with Nick Nolte, I believe, and Chaz Palminteri. But my question, of course, is why? Why are we seeing Mulholland Drive?
Sonny00:00:46I'll set the stage here because I don't really want to talk about this too much before we get... I don't want to poison Vic's take on this. So the reason we're talking about Mulholland Drive today is because Criterion Collection is putting out a bunch of new 4K discs. They have moved from DVD to Blu-ray and now they're doing 4K. And in their first run of discs, and in fact out this week, is Mulholland Drive. They're releasing Mulholland Drive. And I mentioned this to the guys, and JBL said that he wants to hear Vic talk about this movie. Now, just again, to set the stage here, Mulholland Drive was released in 2001. It's a David Lynch movie that is critically acclaimed. It's like 84% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. But I don't think that 84% fresh number really sells it. There is a substantial portion of critics who consider this to be the best movie of the last 20 years. If you do lists of movies released since 2000, it is very frequently near the top. And it wound up in a bunch it like at the top of a bunch of best of the decade lists from the decade it was released. So this is not just a critically acclaimed film. It is a film that is considered to be the absolute pinnacle of cinema cinema by a great number of people who who are paid to have opinions about these things. Vic, what do you make
Vic00:02:22of that? That should tell you all you need to know about the sorry state of opinions and critics in this world, in this country. So did you
Sonny00:02:35see that movie? It's at the time. No, I did. I did not see I did not see Mulholland Drive until our middle middle of like 2005, probably 2000. That's the first time I saw it. I've watched it probably four or five times since. Wow. Wow. And you, too, Jay, you didn't see
Vic00:02:50it like you didn't get the screening from Allied and Go at the time. I got the screening.
JVL00:02:55Really? I didn't go, though. So I never saw it in theaters. OK. And we saw it. Didn't
Vic00:03:00did anybody else see it? I hate to disappoint you, but you were thinking that Gene might have seen it. And the problem is that was 20 years ago and Gene did a review, but that was 20 years. And I'm sure you don't have the archived review of that. Would you like
Sonny00:03:17hold on? Let me let me pull up the bloop bloop bloop bloop. What?
Vic00:03:25Mulholland Drive is the story of a Hollywood budding actress obsessed with an amnesiac. Betty wants to help Rita recover her memory, but something rubs her the wrong way and later the right way. Rita's got a secret, but remains tight lipped until bedtime. Enough with Bush v. Gore. It's time for Bush v. Bush. Remember, this is 2001.
Sonny00:03:54It was 2001 when this came out.
Vic00:03:57This is a dope movie with a lot of bling. At movie's end, that's how we spoke and speak in 2001, Betty is able to finger the culprit in a scene that's dripping with suspense. Mulholland Drive starts with one star but finishes with an explosive four. For me. This is the second movie I saw this weekend with multiple twists and turns. The other was Corky Lane, also four stars. Back to you, Katie and Matt. Wow.
?00:04:29Wow.
JVL00:04:30Wow. That was a blast from the past. Look at that. Look at that. That was a blast from the past. Everything I dreamed it could be. Okay.
Sonny00:04:37Okay. All right, Nick, I want you to explain-
JVL00:04:39Yes. What happens- Can you tell the people- No, I can't.
Sonny00:04:43... what happens in this movie? In your own words, just explain what the things that happen in Mulholland Drive.
Vic00:04:49I don't know. I don't know. I was so confused. It was so easy to explain.
JVL00:04:54Now, hold on. Did you watch this with Kate to aid you so that you could ask somebody for help while you watched it or did you watch it all by yourself?
Vic00:05:01It would not have helped. That would have helped. It would not have helped. I was so uninterested. I found it so boring. I was so confused. It's Hitchcockian. I get it. It's very noirish. I get it. It's kind of like Vertigo with obsessions and identities and things like that. But what happens is... Betty, played by Naomi Watts, I don't know what she did before this movie, but I'll say that this is the best movie she's ever done. And by the way, towards the end, her Australian accent comes out. I don't know if you noticed this. She has this thing where she's yelling at somebody through the door and it's sort of that oi sound comes out, which is kind of funny. Nevertheless, she's like an... What do you call it? An ingenue JVL? Is that what you call it? Oh, she's an ingenue. An ingenue, right? So she came over from Canada. It has... One of the weirdest openings. I thought that the quality... The jitterbug? Yes. The quality of the film... It's so weird because this is like, I don't know, five, six years after movies like Heat or whatever. I mean, so it's... But it has an old feel to it like it was done early 90s and the quality... I imagine he didn't spend a lot of money putting this movie together because it just felt kind of, I don't know, thin in terms of quality production. So a woman gets in a car accident. She doesn't remember who she is. And so she ends up sneaking into this other woman's home. And Naomi Watts is there because she's like the niece coming in to try out for Hollywood. They become friends. She wants to help this amnesiac figure out who she is. They fall in love. And then it turns out it was a dream.
Sonny00:06:43You are skipping over the whole Justin Theroux plot. What's going on with the director?
Vic00:06:46Oh, well, there's also that, right? So like he's being pressured...
Sonny00:06:48What's going on with the director of this movie?
Vic00:06:50He's being pressured. This guy, a young director, is being pressured to cast a certain woman and not the woman he wants for a role in this movie by... I don't know who these people are. Gangsters? I guess they're gangsters. You guess.
JVL00:07:04I guess.
Vic00:07:05Okay. Is it God? See? It's crazy. And then somehow the woman he casts is not actually the actual woman. It's Rita, who is the amnesiac. Or is it Betty? No. And then Betty's in love with Rita, but Rita then marries the director. The end?
Sonny00:07:27What did you make of Billy Ray Cyrus in this movie?
Vic00:07:30He's very beefy looking. He's very beefy. And it's funny, because when you say clean jean, is that the name of his truck? He's the cleaner?
Sonny00:07:37He's the pool cleaner. Clean jean. That's kind of funny. I tell you who I love. What about the cowboy? Explain to me the cowboy.
Vic00:07:45That had a very Coen Brothers feel to it. These sort of strange... California's weird.
Sonny00:07:50If you do the right thing, you'll see me one more time. Right. Right. If you do the wrong thing, you'll see me two more times.
Vic00:07:58JVL can probably talk about this, obviously, a lot more, because he's been out there, and California's a weird place with weird places. On the hills, in the hills. So really quickly, the Quadrant score, the plot is definitely an F minus. I don't know what the fuck was happening in this movie. Duration is an F. Action violence, B. It was kind of interesting. How is sex nudity, Victorino? A plus, plus, plus. So it has this... Only three pluses? Three pluses? I maxed out. That's as much as you can max. That's as much as I can max.
Sonny00:08:28Wait, did French Dispatch have three pluses or four pluses?
Vic00:08:31Three pluses. They're all three pluses. This should be 19 pluses. No, no. That's too crazy. I draw the line at the Quadrant stop at A+++. I didn't understand anything and it doesn't-
Sonny00:08:44Explain to me, Vic. It doesn't get good in- Explain to me, Vic, the creature behind the dumpster.
Vic00:08:48That I don't know. And what is the cube? What is the cube? What is the blue box? I don't know. That's what I'm saying. What is the blue box? And the key? And the key is actually a different key. All right. Can we just seriously-
Sonny00:09:00It's so messed up. The best scene in the movie is the triple murder in the office, which is just- That is a very Coen Brothers-like scene, right? Which is actually super Coen-y and actually just very funny comedy of errors. Okay.
JVL00:09:12The worst hit man ever.
Vic00:09:14Jesus. I'd say the best part of this movie, everybody. Listeners, if you haven't seen this movie, just jump to hour 40 and then later on, go six. I marked it for you, and then there was something in between, but I didn't even have time to mark that one down. All right. Go. I'm done. I'm so exhausted by this weird movie.
JVL00:09:33Hold on, Vic. I want you to stay with me before you black out. I'm so confused. I'm about to black out. Before you go to your fugue state, I want you to stay with me, because I saw this mere hours after receiving an email with this photo. Oh, no. Oh, no. Can you tell the people? What is this photo?
Vic00:09:54That's a picture of a priest.
JVL00:09:56That's it? It's a picture of a priest?
Sonny00:09:59Who looks strangely... Who looks a little bit like...
JVL00:10:02Is it a picture of a priest, or somebody photoshopped my face onto that of a priest?
Vic00:10:08You mean they blended? That's bizarre. That doesn't look like...
JVL00:10:13No. That's an actual human being. That is Bishop...
Vic00:10:16Oh, saying that it's somebody who looks like...
JVL00:10:18That is Bishop Stephen Lopez. Yes. I knew it was... A doppelganger like Rita, and Betty, and Diane. And my mind is blown.
Sonny00:10:30You're going to see the cowboy two more times. You've not done it. You've not been... Who can say?
Vic00:10:37I have a doppelganger, too. You have to see the movie Shang-Chi.
Sonny00:10:40Awkwafina? She doesn't look anything like you.
Vic00:10:45No. No. Doctor Strange's buddy, Wong. Wong. Yeah, Wong. Similar at neck size. Same to you, no?
Sonny00:10:54Yeah.
JVL00:10:55Can you please speak to art?
Sonny00:10:57So, I'm the wrong person to ask about this movie because I don't care for David Lynch in general. Me neither. I don't like Blue Velvet. I don't like Twin Peaks.
Vic00:11:07You know what? Blue Velvet I liked. I got Blue Velvet. That's a good one. That's pretty well on the quadrants, too.
Sonny00:11:13I just don't care for him. He doesn't work for me. And this movie doesn't work for me either, for frankly, all of the reasons that Vic kind of... ...laid out. It is an... I don't even want to call it an interesting mess because that gives it too much credit. I mean, it's one of these weird things that is doing an inversion of kind of a typical LA noir story. Just one small example. After the car wreck, two detectives are there to survey the scene, one of whom is Robert Forster, who never appears again in the movie.
Vic00:11:49I thought I might have missed that.
Sonny00:11:50Never. Never shows up again. In the film. No more Robert Forster. So it's like, it's one of these things where it's like it's trying to set you down one path that's doing a different thing. I do find it compellingly hypnotic. Like I said, I've watched it four or five times over the years and I keep hoping that like one day it's just, it's going to click for me and I'm going to get beyond the kind of like surface level. It's about a girl and her dreams in Hollywood and how those dreams don't work out. That's like basically how the two parts of the movie are structured. It's about a girl and her dreams and it's about what happens when that dream doesn't work out. That's, those are the two things that are happening in this movie and they're, they're kind of back to back with each other.
Vic00:12:29I know they're, by the way, they're trying to contrast, right? The Hollywood, glamorous Hollywood actress or bright eyed bushy tailed, so to speak, Naomi Watts and then, and then, and then junkie and then junkie Naomi Watts. I got to tell you, even, even with the bad
Sonny00:12:44teeth, still hot. Yeah. I mean, and that's, that's what they're doing. That's what he's doing here. And I respect it. I think it's kind of interesting. The problem is it is wrapped up in all of these other Lynchian weird things. Like for instance, the, the, the key and the blue box, um, the, the whole Silencio interlude, uh, in the, the, the like opera house nightclub. Now here's the thing. I actually really liked that. I liked that whole sequence. I think it's, I think it's actually like, I think it's weirdly deeply moving and very compelling. And the, the, the musician as they're singing, uh, I, even though it's in Spanish. And I can't understand it. It is like hauntingly touching. I think it's the Spanish version of a Roy Orbison song. Yes, it is. It is. And, and I, I like the whole conceit of that section where they're making a point about the art is a, it's a, it's a recording. The, the performance on the stage is recording. And even when the artist stops, the art goes on. I dig, I dig every discrete part of this movie. I just think it's a nonsense compilation when it, when it all comes together. I, I just don't, I don't think it works on any storytelling level. And like I, I harped on the, the cowboy because it really is the heart of the problem with this movie, which is like, it's not even, it's not even like, you know, uh, what, uh, you know, the mystery box, right. It's not even like a JJ Abrams or Damon Lindelof style mystery box. It's just, it's just weirdness. It's just weirdness for the sake of weirdness. So when you have the, like, when you have the financial backers who are possibly the devil and his minions, um, or possibly God and his minions, you know, uh, like leaning and leaning on the director to make him recast the role and, and get the person they want in it. And using this, this cowboy figure as a heavy who, again, his lines, his line is basically like his whole role in the movie is to tell the director that he's not behaving in a serious way. And that he will, if he has, if he has to make him behave seriously, he will, and nobody wants that to happen. I just like, I don't, I just don't get it. I don't get it. I don't understand what, what he's going for, what Lynch is going for. I find, I find it again, I find it, I find it weirdly hypnotic and weirdly compelling. It's a very strange movie. It just doesn't work JVL.
JVL00:15:15So, uh, so Robert Forster, I suspect is in it because he shot the first half of this as, as an extended version of a TV pilot. Yes. The idea being that it could become a series. It's a famous New Yorker piece about Mulholland drive, I think about its journey to the screen. Uh, and I, I don't know about you guys. I am shocked that television executives looked at the pilot and said, I do not want to put this on, on television. I can't understand why. I mean, this is all, this is all post, um, twin peaks, right? I mean, it's 2001. So, studio canal was like, yeah, here's some money. Go finish it, turn it into a movie. And studio
Vic00:15:55canal, by the way, he said, we will allow it with one exception. You must have a, a sex scene with the two women. That's what the studio canal insisted on.
JVL00:16:03Uh, I, so this is the third time I've seen it. Uh, I think I understood it more than an, either the other two, two times. I don't get all of it. I probably don't even get half of it. Yes. It's kind of a mess, but here's the thing. This is a pure auteur driven piece of avant-garde cinema and it is art because David Lynch understands exactly what he's doing. You are in, you are in the hands of a guy who understands his craft at a really high level all the way through. And whether you, this is the thing, if you don't get a piece of art, that's okay. So long as the artist gets it right. And then the artist isn't bullshitting himself and where things get stupid and bad is a lot of modern art where the artists are just bullshitting. David Lynch knows what he's doing in the fact that you can have a piece of cinema like this, that that deserves to be projected 20 feet tall, 30 feet tall on a giant screen where the hundred people in an auditorium watching it. And if you only get half of it, great. If you get 40% of it, that's great too, because movies can be art. Honestly, I was touched in a way rewatching this, that I have not been touched in years because I have not seen a piece of cinema art in years. I don't think they make this anymore. You might get some rolling on Netflix who somebody throws $10 million to and says, yeah, go ahead and make something, but they're still making it for the small screen and they are not geniuses. Or if they, if it's somebody getting, you know, if it's Scorsese getting his $300 million or whatever the fuck it is to shoot the Irishman, you're getting somebody who's not at the height of his powers and is not making art. It's just self-indulgent. And that's not what, what Mulholland drive is. And because of that, the, this long meandering theoretical atonal mess is great. And I loved it. And I am already sad that we won't get more of this being made. This is like a rel it's like watching something from the studio system. It is a relic from a, a time in Hollywood, which is already over. And I'm sad that I couldn't see it in the force. I just rented it from Amazon in like upscale HD. Cause you can't even buy it to stream it. You can only rent it, which is weird. I don't think I've ever seen that on streaming where they only allow the rental option. But, uh, I, I was sad. I didn't actually get it on a, on JBL. Are you gonna buy the 4k? No, cause I don't buy discs anymore. Cause I don't, I just don't want to have it. Also, can I say it's funny? There are a lot of funny bits in it. You said the, the, the triple murder was funny. That Dan Hedaya in his one scene, which is like the way he rubs his temple is funny. The, the, the, the fight they have in that scene over the espresso, what's, what's up with that? And he spent the espresso out and the, the, this other character, you have no idea who he is. Just this outrage. He goes, that is regarded as one of the finest espressos in the world. It's hysterical that Adam's, uh, wife who's doing it with Billy Ray Cyrus, her jumping on the back of the mob goon and trying to throw him out of her house. That's hysterical. Like again, it is very funny. It's just a guy who knows exactly what he's doing and it's filled with weird stuff.
Vic00:19:51You know what's weird? Everybody acts a certain way and there's a similarity to the way everybody's acting in this very weird movie. They're all acting in a weird way.
JVL00:19:58They are doing in a way because again, Lynch has control of this. David Lynch knows what he's doing and maybe, maybe nobody else in the world is gonna get his vision, but he's got it. And in his head, it's all coherent and it makes sense. And that's why it works as art. And, uh, you know, all the weird type, like the creature man and Mr. Roque and the cowboy and club Silencio. Uh, it's just awesome. I, I had a bit of trivia for you Victorino. Yeah. That Laura Herring. Yes. She's a countess. Do you know who she, uh, married? Uh, yeah, I've, he was Bismarck's great, great grandson. That's right. She is literally the countess von
Vic00:20:42Biz, von Bismarck. Yeah. She has a weird name. It's not even, I think, I don't even know if the Bismarck is on the, her last name, it's a weird thing, but I did, I did see that. I did see that. And she's a Mexican
JVL00:20:52American. What do you think the Germans would say, would say about that? Well,
Vic00:20:55they love the Mexicans, as you know, the Zimmerman Telegram. Remember the Zimmerman Telegram. See, I brought it all together. I brought it all together. Zimmerman Telegram, Barbara Tuchman. Uh, yeah, she was a Mexican American Miss America, I believe. Yeah,
JVL00:21:09that's right. Very buoyant. She's just a buoyant presence on screen. Yes. Yes, she
Vic00:21:15is. Mounds of talent. Um,
JVL00:21:18uh, do you have any other thoughts? I'm surprised that Sonny doesn't love this as art. I, I,
Sonny00:21:26I, the thing is, again, it doesn't have to be for you. This is what I'm saying. The
JVL00:21:30appreciating really click. It's not hard for me, but it is art. It's beautiful. This is, we don't get this anymore. All we have anymore is red notice. I'm sorry. I agree. There,
Sonny00:21:39there is a, there is a, uh, well, I mean, look, this is also why I, uh, I'll, I'll poke the bear a little bit. And I will say that tenant, tenant is basically a $200 million action adventure version of this movie in that a lot of it doesn't really work or make sense, but you know who it makes sense to Christopher Nolan, Christopher Nolan. He has, he has explained it. He has pure confidence in his vision. And he has somebody who was willing to give him an absurd amount of money to make it real on screen. And like, that is why I think tenant, which again, I, I, a large stretches of that movie. I cannot, I could not explain to you now, despite having watched it three times in the last 12 months, uh, it's still great. It's still great and compelling. And this is the thing. This is the thing. I Mulholland drive is a deeply compelling film. Every time I watch it, I don't regret it exactly, but I do find myself frustrated by it. And I, and that frustration, uh, is, uh, you know, maybe it's a me problem. Maybe it's just a me problem, but like that frustration keeps me from loving it.
Vic00:22:51Mm. Yeah. If I wanted to see, I know, I know you're frustrated, uh, believe me watching it.
JVL00:22:56Well, yes. Uh, uh, you know, goop mashup with this, where the sex counselor from group sex,
Vic00:23:03love comes in with two ladies together. Let me help you guys figure this out. It helps them to just give them some penetrating insights. I'm sure it's fine.
?00:23:17I'll see you next time.
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